"Old Age" system in Dom3 - need some info

[user5124]

Hello.

I've registered to say that the only thing that keeps me from buying Dominions 3 is the aging feature.

I'm going to continue with Dominions 2 until it can be disabled with patch/mod/hack. I think it's good that it's available, but wish very much it was optional!

[Arralen]

Sry, you can't simply turn it off, its part of the balancing ...

[dirtywick]

Yep, no more recruiting piles of sages in some far away province and forgetting about them. I think everyone who found a library did that as soon as they found it, so it's kind of nice in that regard. Of course everyone is entitled to their opinions.

[Corwin]

dirtywick said:
Yep, no more recruiting piles of sages in some far away province and forgetting about them. I think everyone who found a library did that as soon as they found it, so it's kind of nice in that regard. Of course everyone is entitled to their opinions.

I disagree. Based upon my experience aging is not as bad as not to recruit sages, (unless you took a Death scale perhaps). I still recruit them as much as I can, it is worth it even with old age.

[dirtywick]

Corwin said:

I disagree. Based upon my experience aging is not as bad as not to recruit sages, (unless you took a Death scale perhaps). I still recruit them as much as I can, it is worth it even with old age.

Oh, I'm not saying don't use them. I'm saying you can't just set them to research and forget that they exist, you have to check on them once in a while and possibly recruit more when they start keeling over.

[thejeff]

Oh, you stop recruiting sages?

And the diseased immortals sound like they have the same behavior as in Dom2. Doesn't really make sense for an immortal to accumulate penalties and afflictions from aging, though. (Unless it's the immortality as a curse theme, which doesn't really seem to fit the backstories of any of Dom3s immortals.)

[Morkilus]

This is the Aging Question and Answer thread about the mechanics. The Whining about Aging thread is here.

[Cainehill]

Ah - the "balancing" that thinks that a Crone pretender, who starts 250 or so years into old age, and has no special abilities, is only worth 35 points less than the Great Sage or Master Druid, both of whom have at least semi-useful special abilities and 250 years or so before they get to old age. Or that balances Crone pretenders as being 55 points less than Frost Father or Great Enchantress, both of whom start with _two_ paths, and _good_ special abilities.

Oh yes, aging is helping _so_ much with balance. *mutter growl spit*

[JPSeraph]

I really like the inclusion of an aging system. I'm sure there will be tweaks to it since this is the first implementation.

As someone who favors *long* SP games, I hope for moddability (to raise the onset of old age for some units as I see fit), or at least a more sophisticated implementation, such as:

Increasing the chance of random afflictions for units based on their "age level", so that units which are 52(50) have a very small chance to suffer from an affliction during their Late Winter Age Test, while a 75(50) (guessing because I am not sure what the age levels would be for a (50) unit) unit would have a significantly higher chance of picking up an affliction.

As it is right now, it feels like units which are barely into old age are dying off or just gaining more decrepitude than experience too soon. The penalties associated with age levels are already significant, so the chance for death/afflictions should perhaps be toned down.

As a sidenote, has anyone had unusual or comical results with older heroes like Bartolomeus?

I only have the demo, but to those who have tried long SP (or MP I suppose) games, does the Hall of Fame become a who's who of Pretenders and other long lived units even if those units haven't participated much in battles? (i.e. 0 kills, but they've been around forever)

[Taqwus]

HoF in my SP games tends to be filled with experienced, lethal battlefield commanders with either nasty magic, nasty ranged items (Spirit Helm for instance) or both.

Although, if you've researched spells like Murdering Winter or Flames from the Sky, mages which catch major armies can jump onto HoF pretty rapidly without leaving the lab. You do get experience just sitting there and researching, but it's not nearly as useful as killing a hundred or more units for HoF purposes.

Played through EA T'ien C'hi (had a couple of Celestial Masters die, but not too badly off with the nature magic... and I was spending more on archers and nobles anyway *shrug* -- trying a massed ground-pounder approach rather than a mobile, flying strat), MA Mictlan (some suffering with the High Priests of the Sun, until I broke the Lawgiver's rule and got a few blood hunters going and forged the rejuvenation boots... and I used more Priest Kings and Mesmerizing Turkeys, and later summoned mages), and LA R'lyeh (whose starspawn have LONG lifespans).